NBA Week 9 Rewind: Warriors show grit behind the spectacle
By Tom West
Who’s Heating Up?
The Golden State Warriors don’t normally appear in this segment. Besides their weary loss to the Milwaukee Bucks the night after that double overtime showdown against the Boston Celtics, the Warriors’ record has been immaculate so far. They stand at 28-1, so to say they’re “heating up” isn’t too accurate. They’ve been hot all season, and the week of Christmas was no different.
As well as taking down the Cavs in that defensive Finals rematch, the Warriors also defeated the Phoenix Suns 103-128, the Bucks 112-121, and the Utah Jazz 85-103. They’re just making winning look so easy, from their fast paced and fluid offense, to their 2nd ranked defense. They lead the NBA in so many areas, such as assists (28.5 per game), three point percentage (42), points per game (114.6) and point differential (13.3).
With such depth, star power and talent in all facets of the game, it looks more likely each week that they can surpass 70 wins this season.
The Atlanta Hawks have gone on a six-game win streak that has been largely unnoticed. In fact, they’re 4th in the NBA in wins with 20. Kent Bazemore has returned to the starting lineup over the last seven games, and the Hawks seem to be benefiting from his 3-and-D talent. With 12.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.4 steals per game with 39.8 percent three point shooting, he’s taken a major step forward from a season ago.
More to the point, Bazemore’s improvement has softened the blow of the Hawks losing DeMarre Carroll this summer. Now that Atlanta are back as an elite team in terms of efficiency (5th in field goal percentage), ball movement (2nd in assists per game) and help defense (partly shown by ranking 3rd in steals per game), they can’t simply be ignored.
Unless the Cavaliers collapse entirely out of the blue, it doesn’t look like the Hawks will be able to challenge them. Now that Kyrie Irving, Iman Shumpert and Kevin Love are back, they can not only head towards the 1st seed in the East, but solidifying themselves as superiors to the teams of the Conference trying to keep up.
Andre Drummond has got people excited about rebounding. Considering the three-point-happy, highlight-dunking, superstar-point-guard filled nature of the NBA today, that’s saying a lot. He’s putting up the closest rebound numbers that we’ve seen since Dennis Rodman hounded the glass during the 1990s, as one of the most relentless and aggressive athletes in the game. Of course, it was more impressive as he was only 6’7″, yet, nevertheless, what Drummond doing is exceptional.
A player hasn’t averaged more than 16 rebounds per game in a season since Rodman did so with 16.1 during the 1996-97 season (per Basketball Reference). If Drummond keeps going with his mark of 16.3, which looks more than likely, he’ll have recorded the best rebounding season in nearly 20 years. Last week he was at it again, and notched his fifth 20-20 game of the year with 22 points and 22 rebounds against the Boston Celtics.
Kevin Durant has been playing exceptionally well since the moment he returned after missing six games with a hamstring injury. After coming back, he’s averaged 25.9 points on 53.8 percent shooting, 7.8 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1 steal and 1.4 blocks per game. More importantly, the Thunder are fully healthy, and have a 13-4 record in this time span because of it.
Their bench has still been a real weak spot, largely besides the instant scoring and rebounding of Enes Kanter (20.5 points and 14.4 rebounds per 36 minutes), but OKC are still a force with Durant and Russell Westbrook at the helm.
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